Hurricane Simon weakens off Mexico Pacific coast

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Simon weakened to a tropical storm off Mexico’s Pacific coast Sunday and looked set to spare Baja California’s storm-ravaged resorts from another major battering.

It had earlier swirled off the coast as a powerful category four storm on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale.

Simon’s winds were blowing at 110 kilometres (70 miles) per hour and the eye of the storm was located about 510 kilometres south-southwest of Punta Eugenia, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).

It was on a path to become a weaker tropical depression when it reaches the Baja California peninsula later this week, well north of Los Cabos resorts.

An NHC tracking map showed Simon making landfall well north of the Los Cabos resorts that were pummeled last month by Hurricane Odile, which left six people dead.

The storm was expected to produce up to 22 centimetres (nine inches) of rain across central and northern Baja California and parts of Sonora state in northwestern Mexico.

The rain could trigger flash floods and mudslides, as well as “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” due to swells, the NHC said.